Area of study

Public Health

Brief profile

Vivian Lin is the Chair of Public Health and was Head of the School of Public Health from 2000-2005. Since arriving in Australia in 1982, she has worked in NSW Health, Victorian Health Department and its successor, National Occupational Health and Safety Commission and Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services. During this time, she has had responsibility for policy, planning, and program development across a wide range of health issues, including health promotion, ethnic health, Aboriginal health, aged care, health technology, pharmaceuticals, intergovernmental relations, regional planning, and health export. From 1997-2000, she was Executive Officer for the National Public Health Partnership.

Professor Lin is presently on leave and based in Manila, as Director of Health Systems Division for the World Health Organization for the Western Paific Region.

Professor Lin served as Vice President for Scientific Affairs for the International Union of Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) from 2007-2013, Deputy Chair of Chinese Medicine Board of Australia (2011-13). In recent times, she has also chaired the Advisory Board for the Australian National University’s Centre for China in the World and been a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council for Healthcare. Professor Lin has consulted extensively for the World Bank, the UK Department for International Development and the World Health Organization, particularly in relation to health promotion and health system development. She served on the Medicine and Public Health Panel for the Performance-based Research Funding scheme of the New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission three times and is currently Health Policy Editor for Social Science and Medicine. She is also an associate editor of the International Journal of Public Health and a member of the editorial board of Oxford Bibliographies, Australian Health Review, and Australian Journal of Primary Health.

Professor Lin has been the honorary policy convenor for the Public Health Association and has served on the Board of Management for Working Women's Health, the Public Health Committee of the Australian Medical Association and the Board of the Chinese Health Foundation of Australia. She was a member of the Dairy Food Safety Board of Victoria from 2000-2003 and served as inaugural President of the Chinese Medicine Registration Board of Victoria from 2000-2009. She was a member of the Australia China Council between 2006-2009 and served as a board member of the CRC on Aboriginal Health from 2003-2010.

Bagley, P. & Lin, V. (2009). The development and pilot testing of a rapid assessment tool to improve local public health system capacity in Australia. BMC Public Health, 9(413), 1-16.

Lin V, Fawkes S and Hughes A (2008) A vision for prevention in Australia: Discussion paper. Australian Institute of Health Policy Studies (AIHPS). [A copy of the paper can be downloaded from http://healthpolicystudies.org.au/component/option,com_docman/task,cat_view/gid,88/Itemid,145/